The 2016-2017 academic year - summary

In the 2016/2017 academic year there were 1348.8 thousand students in higher education institutions, i.e. by 4.0% less than in the previous academic year. It was the eighteenth successive year when a decline in the number of students was recorded, which was influenced by demographic changes (year by year the population aged 19-24 has been decreasing).

66.2% of all higher schools were non-public. However, public schools recorded higher number of students 76.7% of all students. Women accounted for 57.6% of all students.

In the academic year 2016/2017 Business and administration, engineering and engineering trades as well as social sciences were most often chosen subgroups among ISCED-F 2013 fields of education. The number of foreign students in Polish higher schools has been increasing. In the 2016/2017 academic year their number amounted to 65.8 thousand, i.e. 4.9% of all students.

The most numerous were students from Europe –53.7 thous. persons in total, majority of whom came from, Ukraine (35.6 thous. students), Belarus ( 5.1 thous. students).

In 2016 there were 578.4 thousand students learning modern foreign languages in obligatory courses (i.e. 45.1% of all students – excluding foreigners). Their number fell by 4.8% in comparison with the previous year.

92,5% of students learning foreign languages attended only one foreign language course. Students learning one foreign language accounted for 41.7% of the students' population. Much smaller percentage of students learned two foreign languages (7.5%).

The number of graduates in the 2015/2016 academic year amounted to 364,6 thous. and was lower by nearly 30.6 thous. in comparison with the 2014/2015 academic year.

The number of students of post-graduate studies in the 2016/2017 academic year increased by 6.4 thous. in relation to the previous year and amounted to 158.0 thousand. In comparison with the 2005/2006 academic year there were 13.8 thous. more post-graduate students (10.2%) which also represents almost a tripled number of attendees in 1995/1996. Female students constituted 72.8% of all post-graduate students.

In the 2016/2017 academic year the number of students attending Ph.D. studies conducted by tertiary education institutions, such as research institutes, scientific units of Polish Academy of Sciences and the Medical Centre of Post-graduate Education amounted to 43.2 thous., 0.2% less than a year before.

In higher schools, as of December 2016 there were 95.4 thous. of academic teachers employed (counted as full-time equivalent), of which 2.0 thus. were foreigners. There were almost 14 students per one academic teacher as the year before).


source: Central Statistical Office, Higher Education Institutions and their Finances